The Digital Technology for Democracy Lab is a collaboration across the University of Virginia that explores how rapidly evolving digital technologies can challenge, but might also fortify, democratic institutions and practices.
Pioneering transdisciplinary research to explore democracy in the digital age
Our Focus
Upcoming Events
Research & Programming
AI Impact Atlas
Subterranean Convergence
Open-Source AI as Democratic Infrastructure
AI Shock
Automated Futures
Multimodal Climate AI
Data in the Dark
Automation’s Ecologies
Visual Misinformation
AI & the Environment
Student Technology Council
Technology & Disinformation
Social Contagions
Gender & Tech
Co-Opting AI
Urban Digital Twins
Technology & Democracy Exchange
Data Center Policies
Descendant-Led Digital Humanities Lab & Network
Cryptocurrency & Democracy
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DTD Lab Welcomes New Postdocs & Faculty Affiliate
Meet the Lab
Reimagining AI for Environmental Justice & Creativity Collection of Essays
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Insights from the Visual Generative AI Propaganda Convening
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Video Library
FLiNG Report Launch: How Finfluencers, Fin-Tech, and FOMO Shape Young Adults’ Financial Well-being
Cryptocurrency & Democracy
In the News
Digital strategies of resilience: LGBTQ+ youth and identity fluidity in rural Iraq
LGBTQ+ youth in rural Iraq remain largely absent from global scholarship despite facing profound risks arising from criminalization, entrenched conservatism, and geographic isolation. A recent article co-authored by Ahmed Alrawi, DTD Lab 2024-26 postdoc, examines how rural Iraqi LGBTQ+ youth employ digital platforms to negotiate identity, manage stigma, and sustain community ties under repressive social and legal conditions.
New Digital Technology for Democracy Grant to Support AI Impact Atlas
How might artificial intelligence reshape jobs and local economies? New support from UVA’s Digital Technology for Democracy Lab will help Biocomplexity Institute researchers expand the AI Impact Atlas, a decision-support platform designed to help communities prepare for a range of possible workforce futures.
AI Is Infrastructure. Govern It Accordingly.
As prediction increasingly shapes decisions about jobs, healthcare, education, and public services, the next frontier is how it organizes society. In a new essay from Mona Sloane, DTD Lab faculty co-lead, she draws on the history of the railroads to argue that policymakers already have a blueprint for governing essential technologies: treat AI as infrastructure, apply public oversight, and ensure that systems central to modern life serve the public interest rather than private power.
Join our vibrant lab and help us explore the intersection of digital technology and democracy.
Current Opportunities